The present invention relates to improvements over the truss construction shown in my prior U.S. Pat. No. 3,416,283, which disclosed parallel wood chord members and diagonal compression and tension web members of metal having perforated load transferring flanges at their ends connected to alternately opposite sides of the chord members by toothed plates abuttingly intermeshing the flange perforations and embedded in the chord members.
It has been determined that the use of diagonal metal webs for both the compression and tension members is not economically practicable because in order to resist buckling due to the compression stresses the compression web members must be much heavier and stronger than the tension web members.
Also, the fact that the metal web members are connected alternately to opposite sides of the chord members makes it difficult to apply the plates in assembling the trusses according to conventional methods by passing a horizontal pressure roll over the trusses because of the relatively large toothed plates on the underside of the truss not becoming fully embedded in the chord members.
Trusses have been proposed in which the compression members are vertical wood web members and the tension members are diagonal wood members, both the compression and tension web members being connected to the wood chord members by toothed metal plates. Such a construction requires additional compression members and exceptionally large wood tension members with correspondingly large toothed connector plates to transfer the loads, so that the construction becomes excessively expensive. Moreover, the clear space between the chord members for the passage of ductwork and the like is greatly reduced by the vertical compression members, especially in trusses of minimal depth, so as to require the cutting and weakening of diagonals to obtain the required space.